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Mother Hulda´s Lullaby ..

..from an old ms in ancient German

The Brothers Grimm are Germany´s most famous researchers of folklore and mythology. But they were not the only ones, who had been researching that field in the 19th century.

In one of the many magazines on regional history and folklore, which had been published in the 19th century I have found an old lullaby from Eastern Westphalia.

A Pagan Lullaby

by Hamsadevi Claudia

Child, sweet child, now sleep,

no more shall you weep.

Goddesses with skillful means

keep wolves and nightmares from your dreams.

Sleep well until the sun will rise;

Hulda * of the Golden hives

may feed you with honey and apple pies.

Ostara in the morning dew

scatters her blue flowers of magic on you.

Tamfana of the sacred lands

will bless you with human and animal friends.

And One-Eye with his horses and bow

is guarding you always, is guarding you now.

I have translated the original text from old German into modern English and edited it, so that it may reflect the beauty and deep piety of the original for us modern pagans of the 21rst century.

I have also added the original text as well as some vocabulary, which I have used for my translation and edition of the text.

As the text itself must have been passed orally from one generation to the next for several centuries, (this part of Germany was said to be christian from the 9th century onwards) some of the knowledge behind the words had been lost. I have tried to restore this according to the pagan belief of the region.

Original text

Tocha slafes sliumo, weinon sar lazzes.

Triwa werit kraftlicho, themo wolfa wurgiantemo,

Slafes unza morgane, manes trut sunilo.

Ostara stellit chinde, honak egir suozziu.

Hera* pritchit chinde, pluomun plobun rotiu.

Zanfana sentit morgane, feiziu scaf kleiniu,

Unta Einouga, herra hurt, horsca, asca harta.

*I think Hera came into the text in the late 18th or early 19th century, when a lot of pagan knowledge was lost, Mother Hulda had become a figure of fairy tales, and Greek mythology was highly en vogue and part of history lessons at school, even in the countryside. So I have replaced Hera with Hulda, as Hera originally never had been worshipped in ancient Germany, whereas Hulda had been one of the Goddesses, whose trails we may find everywhere in the mythology and folklore of the area.